Sunday School Graduate
Most of you who read my blog have already read Olivia's. I can't tell you how upset I was last night. Even if you've seen me mad, I guarantee you have never seen me this angry. Anyway, it's still too fresh for me to talk about it, though I hope you'll read Olivia's blog to see what went on.
Today I mowed our lawn. I got some new edger string and was excited to try it out. (yeah, who gets excited about edger string?) I had basically finished when my trimmer ran out of gas and my neighbor walked up to me in the alley. This is one of our better neighbors (not the druggie tejano punks or the dirty college students). Mr. Claunch is a piano tuner and has been for years. He has a story for every occasion and just in case you don't get the point of it, he usually follows it with 2 or 3 others. I like Mr. Claunch because he's a thinker.
Tonight he posed a question to me in the form of a story. Mr. Claunch was tuning a piano at one the theology school I went to (no, theology school is not a requirement for working in a grocery store, but you'd be surprised how often it helps). He was talking to the Dean, who wasn't always good at relating to regular people and could come across as a little high and mighty. Mr. Claunch wasn't impressed with this attitude and offered this observation...
"You know who I'd really like to meet? I'd like to meet a Sunday School Graduate." He'd never met one and couldn't figure out how we'd created a "school" that you never graduated from, never got evaluated in, and only had to get older to advance to the next level. Mr. Claunch isn't impressed with church, as such, and figured the world would be better off with fewer Sunday School students and more Sunday School graduates.
"You see," he explained to me, "a graduation is called a Commencement. It isn't the end of anything. It is simply a statement that you've learned enough to begin (to commence) the actual work."
You know what? I appreciate his point. We need need fewer people with a merely classroom faith, and more who are actually out there living the Christian life. We need application of our Christianity. We need Christians who understand that it is every believer's responsibility to do ministry. We need Sunday School graduates.
"And He gave some {as} apostles, and some {as} prophets, and some {as} evangelists, and some {as} pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ; until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ. As a result, we are no longer to be children, tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness in deceitful scheming; but speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all {aspects} into Him who is the head, {even} Christ."
Today I mowed our lawn. I got some new edger string and was excited to try it out. (yeah, who gets excited about edger string?) I had basically finished when my trimmer ran out of gas and my neighbor walked up to me in the alley. This is one of our better neighbors (not the druggie tejano punks or the dirty college students). Mr. Claunch is a piano tuner and has been for years. He has a story for every occasion and just in case you don't get the point of it, he usually follows it with 2 or 3 others. I like Mr. Claunch because he's a thinker.
Tonight he posed a question to me in the form of a story. Mr. Claunch was tuning a piano at one the theology school I went to (no, theology school is not a requirement for working in a grocery store, but you'd be surprised how often it helps). He was talking to the Dean, who wasn't always good at relating to regular people and could come across as a little high and mighty. Mr. Claunch wasn't impressed with this attitude and offered this observation...
"You know who I'd really like to meet? I'd like to meet a Sunday School Graduate." He'd never met one and couldn't figure out how we'd created a "school" that you never graduated from, never got evaluated in, and only had to get older to advance to the next level. Mr. Claunch isn't impressed with church, as such, and figured the world would be better off with fewer Sunday School students and more Sunday School graduates.
"You see," he explained to me, "a graduation is called a Commencement. It isn't the end of anything. It is simply a statement that you've learned enough to begin (to commence) the actual work."
You know what? I appreciate his point. We need need fewer people with a merely classroom faith, and more who are actually out there living the Christian life. We need application of our Christianity. We need Christians who understand that it is every believer's responsibility to do ministry. We need Sunday School graduates.
"And He gave some {as} apostles, and some {as} prophets, and some {as} evangelists, and some {as} pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ; until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ. As a result, we are no longer to be children, tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness in deceitful scheming; but speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all {aspects} into Him who is the head, {even} Christ."
(Ephesians 4:11-15)
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